Black And White And Red All Over
by MoonMargaret
Summary: The kingdom of Camelot exists in a state of black and white, with absolutes never mixing. Good and evil, loyalty and betrayal, Arthur and Morgana, muscle and magic. But when the truth unexpectedly begins to come out about Merlin, will there be enough left in Camelot for gray? (Post S4, but no real spoilers. Part 1 originally a one-shot from reveal series "In Media Res.")
1. Morgana

**Disclaimer: _Merlin_ is not mine.**

They were unconscious.

In a way, it was an infinitely satisfying vision. Her two nemeses, both of whom had thwarted her time and time again, were slumped against each other, unconscious and bloody on the dirty floor of an abandoned castle, useless even as the battle raged just outside of their reach. Their friends were dying—horribly, more likely than not—and _they_ were trapped within a magical barrier that even _she_, who had cast it, would have to expend more than a bit of energy removing. They were trapped, and death raged around them. It was a devastating predicament. So that was, in a way, very satisfying.

In another way, it would have been infinitely _more_ satisfying if they were actually awake to realize how devastating was their predicament. As it was, they almost looked peaceful. They probably weren't even _cold,_ she thought grouchily. They were all but snuggling.

Of course, that was partly her fault. Merlin had stumbled into the chamber, supporting the already unconscious Arthur, no doubt dragging the king away from the fight to spare him the fate that awaited the rest of the men of Camelot. Merlin _had_ always had a rather narrow view when it came to prioritizing. And Arthur always seemed to be at the top of his list. So he had bumbled his way in and had just managed to swing the door shut without dropping his charge when he looked over his shoulder and saw Morgana, who was surprised at the unexpectedly fortuitous intrusion but far more prepared than the errant servant for a confrontation. She had _her_ spell ready long before he could have come up with anything other than a mild insult. In fact, he hadn't even been able to finish swearing before she raised a hand and flung him back, knocking him out and sending the two men up against the door where they now slumped together in a pathetic heap of extinguished greatness.

She smiled at the thought. A pathetic heap of extinguished greatness…if that wasn't poetically fitting of her, she didn't know what could be.

She'd considered waking one or both of them, just to hasten the thing along. She'd been waiting so long for this…how could she wait any longer, when they were just _there,_ begging to be killed? But then, she'd waited so long for this…surely she could wait a bit longer. After all, if she healed them enough to wake them up, she might accidentally heal them enough that they might regain strength enough to cause her a bit of trouble before she struck the final blow. Arthur wouldn't have been particularly worrying; no commonplace _weapon_ could stop her. She'd taken his arms anyway. Merlin, on the other hand, was something of a different story, but from the way that his head was bleeding, she couldn't imagine that he'd be up for any particularly epic battles. She wasn't even sure that she could imagine him standing up without leaning on something for support. She could only hope that he would actually wake up on his own without doing something distinctly anticlimactic like dying in his sleep before she had a chance to hold him accountable for the wrongs he'd done her.

So she sat on her dilapidated throne and began to wait. To wait, and to watch.

After about a quarter of an hour, Merlin began to stir. She was slightly surprised; although Arthur had already been wounded and unconscious when Merlin had brought him into the room, he almost certainly hadn't been particularly hurt by the fling into the wall. Merlin had taken the brunt of that force and had all but provided cushioning for the king. She'd thought Arthur more likely to wake before Merlin. Despite her confidence, uneasiness twinged at her. Could Merlin be healing himself…unnaturally? Even unconscious? That would not have been a good sign. It would perhaps not be unexpected, if the stories that she'd discounted were actually true. And a speedy wakening would surely not be enough to render him formidable in his state. But it was still relatively disquieting.

No matter. She could reflect on and laugh at her foolish discomfort later, when it was finished. Merlin's eyes were fluttering, and there were things to be done. She stood and tensed.

After a few moments, Merlin's eyes stayed properly open and, from the way that he immediately covered them with a limp and scraped bloody palm, dilated in the light that shone halfheartedly through the broken windows of the sealed throne room. When he lowered his hand, he seemed to come to his senses and pushed himself up onto his elbows, still on his back. Morgana readied herself.

Merlin didn't so much as glance in her direction. Perhaps feeling Arthur at his side, or perhaps just perpetually obsessed with looking for the kind at all times, Merlin glanced to his right and saw Arthur lying flat on his back on the floor, motionless save for the steady rise and fall of his chest. Clambering painfully to his knees, he knelt over Arthur and placed a hand on the king's torso, just below his collarbone. She wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, although he _had_ been living with Gaius for the better part of a decade. He was bound to have picked up on a few methods of medicine. Perhaps this was something that he'd learned from the old physician. Gaius always had seemed better at diagnosing than actually treating.

After a minute or so, he apparently satisfied himself that Arthur was not on the verge of death. Leaning back on his heels and looking exhausted, he wiped at his brow with the back of a hand. Judging by his unconcerned countenance, Morgana thought that maybe he believed himself sweating rather than bleeding. From the way that he glanced at his hand and then nearly fell over when he saw that the wetness happened to be red, he'd indeed been too preoccupied by Arthur's injuries to take much notice of his own. That was good, she thought. He would begin to put it together. He hadn't been injured when he'd entered the room; he'd figure it out.

Apparently, he'd figure it out more quickly than she'd've imagined of him. After a moment, he whipped around as quickly as he could on his knees and, from the look of him, on death's door. His eyes locked on Morgana, who smiled.

Merlin groaned, and her smile faltered for a moment. It was not a groan of pain or terror or anything equally appropriate. He sounded…annoyed.

"Oh, come on," he muttered. "Really?"

No, that was definitely not terror. He must have hit his head harder awfully hard, she told herself. Otherwise, he'd be wetting himself at his dire predicament.

"Hello, Morgana," he said tiredly, and began to try to stand. She saw him reach over Arthur and wondered if he was going to try to rouse the king. Merlin didn't know, she remembered…but Merlin wasn't touching Arthur. Not really. He was reaching for Arthur's scabbard. Finding it empty, he groaned again.

This seemed like the ideal opening for the revelations to begin, she decided.

"Hello, _Emrys,"_ she said impressively, and crossed her arms, waiting. She was somehow already pleased with her upper hand, and the corners of her mouth twitched. Besides, when it came to Merlin's true identity, she very much preferred thinking of her upper hand than the fact that it had taken her so _long_ to realize who he was. It was practically by accident that she had figured it out as it was. She'd just never thought to connect the two of them. The all-powerful Emrys and the idiot _Merlin_ were not a pair of people who often were subjects in the same sentence for her. But then she'd begun listing people who annoyed her and Merlin and Emrys had by chance followed one another in the list and then it began to fall together. She'd laughed at the thought at first, wondering if perhaps she was more sleep-deprived than she'd believed. Then she'd thought about it. There _were_ an awful lot of coincidences that surrounded Merlin and his ridiculously unlikely survival. The more that she considered, the coincidences didn't seem quite so…coincidental.

Of course, she then spent the better part of an evening berating herself for being a fool. Merlin was _right _there. She'd had him in her clutches so many times. He'd always been right there at Arthur's side, and _both_ of them had survived on so many occasions when they should have died. They had achieved so much more than should have been possible for a boy royal and his bumbling servant. Sheer luck could only take a pair so far. Of _course_ one of them was a sorcerer, and it sure as hell wasn't going to be Arthur. But then there was the peasant who had stumbled into Camelot and weaseled his way into the royal household and then everything in Camelot had seemed to go differently thereafter. One boy, one _servant,_ shouldn't have had so much of an influence. He'd probably enchanted Arthur. Maybe even Uther. And there were so many instances…yes, she felt foolish and Merlin was Emrys and it was all falling into place.

So, she said, "Hello, Emrys," and waited for him to tremble.

Unfortunately, he just waved a halfhearted hand in her direction, as though he was merely acknowledging the fact that she had spoken and that he had heard her. He was struggling to his feet, wobbling so much that he had to reach out a hand against the wall to steady himself. The blood that he'd wiped from his brow was smeared upon the stone, and when she saw the image of a single bloody handprint, she found herself shuddering.

Finally, he stood up. He was still rather hunched and, as he shuffled forward half a dozen feet closer to her, he had to lean heavily against a pillar to keep from sliding down again. When he looked up, she saw that he was remarkably pale, the whiteness of his skin offset by the darkness of his hair and the almost unnatural red brightness of the blood. The grimness somehow made his eyes look eerily blue. He looked like a corpse with his limbs strung up from the ceiling like a puppet with a particularly lazy puppeteer. In his white hand, he clutched a small dagger. From the way that it glinted even in the pale light of the throne room, she knew that it was too fine to have belonged to Merlin. Arthur must have had the knife concealed on his body somewhere where she had missed it when she had relieved him of his weapons. Merlin _dressed_ the king; of course he knew of his hidden weapons. But no matter. It was a tiny dagger in the hand of a man resembling death only slightly warmed over. She was a high priestess. Emrys or no, it was a laughably pathetic sight.

He met her eyes and opened his mouth.

"Morgana, what have you done to…" he trailed off, a bit of color returning to his face as he looked at her and considered. A hint of panic crossed his face. She waited. "What did you call me?" he asked, his voice shaking in a very pleasing manner. He glanced back at Arthur in what she assumed was a check to see that he was indeed still unconscious.

"Did you not hear me?" she asked sweetly, utterly enjoying his floundering. That is, she utterly enjoyed his floundering until she saw as he glared at her with an intensity that made her want to take a few steps backward. And perhaps hide behind the throne. But that wouldn't have done at all. She could enjoy his flounder un-utterly without actually _hiding_ from the man.

"Morgana," he said, an authority in his voice that seemed entirely unfitting. "What did you call me?"

"I called you by your true name," she said stiffly. As she watched, Merlin inhaled deeply, the breath shuddering as he took it in. He stared at her as though he couldn't have looked away if he had wanted to. Arthur might as well have disappeared from the room. "_Emrys."_

Merlin's face then went through such a rapid transition of emotions that Morgana forgot Arthur herself as she tried to register all of them. Dread and uncertainty and anger and denial, but there was first and foremost _fear_—perhaps fear and confusion—and he dropped his head at an uncomfortable-looking angle so that all she could properly see was his profile. For a moment, she thought that he had fallen back into a faint and would collapse at any instant, but as she looked more closely, she saw the whites of his eyes. He was breathing heavily, and she wondered if he was about to weep. It wouldn't have surprised her; to have kept a secret for so long and to have been discovered by his _enemy_ could not have been good for his opinion of himself. This was good. She wanted him to hate himself before he died.

Then, after a moment, Merlin raised his head again. But it was not self-loathing that she saw in him. The fear was vanished from his face, replaced by an emotion that she could not identify. It was certainly not one that she'd ever seen on Merlin's face. His eyes were terribly clear, and he stood up straight as though utterly uninjured, and she wondered with a pang if he had not been deliberately exaggerating his injuries. In an instant, he was upright, the only sign of the injuries that had left him unconscious and half dead being the scrapes and cuts that he'd taken from Morgana's blow. He touched the long cut on his brow and looked at his hand again. The bleeding had stopped. For some reason, he laughed at the sight and looked back at her eyes. There was a bizarre _joy_ in him, as though he'd been carrying some tremendous weight upon his back and the relief of tossing it aside was more overwhelming than was the danger before him.

"Why are you _laughing?"_ she asked incredulously. She'd played this moment out in her mind countless times, but it had never involved _laughter._ Not from him, anyway.

"Because you figured it out," said Merlin, still smiling. "And you let me wake up and _face_ you...that was not a wise move, Morgana."

"What does _that_ mean?" she asked sharply. She didn't need to feel like a fool.

"No one figures it out," he continued. "They always see me at it or I tell them or I show them, but you figured it out. You never even _see_ me, but you figured it out. You should have killed me, but well done on doing figuring it out on your own. _You…"_

"Of course I did," she said, feeling vaguely insulted. "No one else has?"

"No," said Merlin, laughing again, although the mirth sounded distinctly thicker than before. "Not Arthur, not Gwen, not a single one of those damn knights. But _you_ figured it out."

That took her by surprise. She'd assumed that Merlin had a few allies in Camelot who knew who he really was. Gaius, of course, but there had to be others, hadn't there? How else could he have managed to survive in secret for so long? Powerful Emrys might be, but the castle wasn't exactly a place known for its privacy. "You're saying that no one finds out?" she asked doubtfully.

"Well, some people find out," said Merlin, sobering himself abruptly. "But most don't live to tell the tale."

She laughed aloud at that. If Merlin thought that he was going to frighten her into letting him go by inventing stories of the might that he'd exercised over the years—the lengths that he had gone to to remain in Camelot without being exposed—then he was either a bigger fool than she'd ever imagined or he'd hit his head harder than she'd thought. Poor Merlin, she thought, smiling to herself. If this was the best that he could do to try to talk his way out of this—for he was certainly in no condition to put up much of a fight—she would almost feel guilty for crushing so unworthy of a foe. Almost. Perhaps he had so long eluded her, she reasoned, was because she'd built Emrys up in her head. She'd believed the stories too much. After all, Emrys was still just a man. So she laughed and looked at him and waited for him to break. Surely he would crack a smile at the ludicrousness of what he had tried to pull on her or blush at how unbelievable a story it was or roll his eyes that she'd even taken those few instants to consider what he had said. She waited him to give himself away.

He just looked at her and raised his eyebrows for a moment. More color was returning to his face…

"You're not serious," she said, trying to remain lofty and mocking. He couldn't be permitted to think that she was seriously considering believing him. Because she wouldn't do something so foolish, certainly. Of course not.

He shrugged. "Ask your friend Agravaine," he said, so nonchalantly that she would have rolled her eyes—as was often her inclination when she remembered _that_ lovestruck fool—if she did not see Merlin's face as he spoke. There was a cruelty there that was not often seen. She'd seen it once before, when he'd taunted her of his pride at thwarting all of her plans and killing Morgause and everything terrible that had happened to her over the years. Granted, she'd had him trussed up and was planning on using him as a vessel to murder Arthur, but there had been an edge of a remorseless ruthlessness in his words and in his face it became inconceivable that there was any falsehood.

And Morgana believed.

"Oh," she said. He raised his eyebrows at her again, a hint of a smile twitching at his lips.

Then, belatedly, Morgana realized what he was saying.

"Oh!"

"'Oh,' indeed, my lady," said Merlin, his voice as threatening as she'd ever heard it. But she could not help but realize that, threats and murderous admissions aside, he hadn't taken any steps—literal or vocal—to attack her. Even the dagger seemed to be barely in his grasp. Perhaps he was as injured as she'd first believed. Perhaps he was bluffing. But how could she trick him into admitting it? She'd have to be sneaky about it…

"You're bluffing," she accused.

Merlin shrugged. Then, his eyes glowed.

And Morgana fell.

She fell _hard._

Bizarrely, her first reaction was a sort of confused embarrassment. When _she_ attacked people, she liked to fling them all about, usually into whatever solid object was nearest and…most solid. But Merlin had just shoved her over. What was impressive about that? So what if she'd fallen so hard that the stones beneath her had cracked and she saw black for a moment and even her massive amounts of dirty hair hadn't done much to cushion the back of her head as it connected with the floor. But he'd just…_tripped_ her? The mighty Emrys, she thought dazedly.

Then, Merlin came into view. He was no longer laughing or even smiling. He looked downright grim, and she remembered the last time that Merlin had had her on the verge of death as she fought for life on the floor of a throne room. It had been the end of everything….

Her eyes glowed, and Merlin let out a sort of "Oof!" and flew out of her line of vision. He didn't fly with so much force as she would have liked, and she wasn't sure if this was because Merlin was actually using his magic and thusly kept her from injuring him as she had in the past or if it was because she had been weakened by Merlin's attack, unimpressive as it may have been. She didn't bother to hope. She'd felt it as she'd channeled her magic to throw him back. He wasn't dead. Unless he landed directly on his previous head wound, he probably wasn't even dazed. He'd probably just skidded backward a few feet. She didn't even bother hoping that she'd flung him into Arthur and broken her stupid brother's royal nose. She hadn't thrown him in that direction. In fact, she hadn't even remembered Arthur until just then, and she would have bet her powers that Merlin had forgotten him as well.

Merlin came back into her field of vision, and she forced herself to try to rise. She made it up to her knees and, knowing that she wasn't likely to make it any higher, summoned all of her strength to glare defiantly at her foe. She was pleased to see that he was at least disheveled from her retaliation and, although it was more likely due to the exertion than the attack, his head wound was trickling blood once more. She'd've liked to see it at least gushing, but now, as she felt what he could do and knew what she could not in her state, she supposed that she ought to take what she could get.

"You're more powerful than I thought," Merlin commented evenly. He circled her appraisingly a few times, and she was vaguely proud that he still deemed her something of a threat. Even as she knelt, trembling with the effort of remaining even in this so pathetic a position, he was being more careful that he had been previously. She was glad for that, now, at the end.

After a minute or so, he stopped circling and stood in front of where she knelt. Still standing, he placed a hand on top of her head and slid it gently to the side until it rested upon her cheek. She looked up at him, and still managed to be surprised, even after everything. She was several years his senior, but there was something so _old_ about him as he looked down at her with no pleasure at her weakened position that she almost wanted to apologize, because she understood. She finally understood why the Druids were so respectful when they spoke of him. She understood why he garnered allegiance from sorcerers who had never met him. She understood the fear and the hope and the dread and the respect. It was Merlin's bony body that stood over her, Merlin's blood that crusted on his wounds, Merlin's eyes that gazed down at her dispassionately, Merlin's hand that touched her cheek gently yet with far too much firmness to be misconstrued as affection. But when she looked up at him, she saw Emrys. And she nearly repented, although she could not say for what.

"I liked you better when you were old," she said, remembering her battle with the elderly man she'd believed his normal body, feeling strangely groggy as she struggled with the picture. "Your eyes were younger."

"I liked you better when you were good," said Merlin, shrugging. "I liked us both better when we were good."

His hand was growing warm.

"Arthur won't forgive you this," she said softly, leaning against his hand, simply for the meager steadiness that it might provide. Was she slurring? Surely she wasn't slurring. "He won't understand."

"For my magic?" asked Merlin, sounding as thought he'd been thinking the same thing. But she shook her head as best she could. She wondered for a moment how he planned to explain how any of this had happened to Arthur, but in an instant, forgot as Merlin repeated himself. "For my magic, Morgana?"

"For _me,"_ she whispered, fading. Her head ached so...

"Have you never heard the prophecies, Morgana?" asked Merlin. "Your destiny lies with me, not Arthur. And besides, contrary to his beliefs, not everything is always about him."

She almost laughed. He sounded as he had when he had come to Camelot. He sounded as she had when she had first had to get used to how he spoke to Arthur, how Arthur _let_ him speak without arresting him, how he had been so _normal_ and made the prince and the ward have to be just a little bit normal themselves. It might as well have been ten years ago.

"Just get on with it," she said, suddenly very tired. "Just kill me."

"I'm not going to _kill_ you, Morgana," said Merlin, actually barking out one very worn and very sad laugh. "Not _now,_ anyway. This isn't the time."

"Well, why not?" as asked, hearing her own petulance and nearly wincing at it. She was on the verge of passing out, and _now_ she was whining. She was whining about not being expediently killed, of all things..."Why not?"

"Your brother will want a word," said Merlin, and his hand grew very warm against her cheek. It was a strangely pleasant sensation, and her eyes grew wide for one long moment. The last thing that she saw before she slipped into unconsciousness was Arthur, the forgotten king. He was sitting, propped up against the stone wall with his legs splayed flatly in front of him. His eyes were open, and his face bloody and pale.

_Well, Merlin,_ she thought dimly. _It looks like he'll want a word with you too._

And then she didn't see anything at all.

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**Thank you for reading! This was originally a one-shot from my series of reveal fics ("In Media Res") and I have ideas about how it would continue, so if there's interest, I'll keep going. **

**Reviews are much appreciated, always. :)**


	2. Arthur

**Disclaimer: Merlin is not mine.**

He felt like a coward.

Objectively, he knew that he was no coward. Not really. He feared neither battle nor death. He didn't particularly embrace the idea of dying, of course, but he was a king and a warrior. The odds of him actually meeting a natural death were not particularly in his favor. But he'd known that for ages. Between battles and outright assassination attempts, he'd been reconciled to the likelihood of a painful death far away from the comforts of his own bed since he had been little more than a boy. Besides, he had a duty to his father and his people. There was no room for cowardice, and he liked to believe that what fears he had were of the healthy rather than crippling sort. He was brave, he knew, and if he had to meet his death young and at the hands of an enemy, at least he could do so with honor.

Still, as Arthur closed his eyes and pretended to be unconscious, he felt like a coward.

But what else could he do? None of it made any sense. There was an enemy in the room who no doubt desired his death. Morgana. _That_ he could understand. Nuances of her motives aside, it tended to be less than difficult to figure out a basic plan to fight an enemy whose ultimate desire was his demise. When it came to battle, details didn't matter so much as they might have otherwise. But from what he had gathered since he had regained consciousness, she was not the only one that he should objectively name as an enemy. Yet how could he possibly be objective about this? It was _Merlin_, and anyhow, even if this sorcerer savior had been anyone else, how could Arthur in any sort of good conscience turn on him? Callous the conversation may have been, but there was no doubt that Merlin was on Arthur's side. Even if Merlin had been lying, his attack on Morgana could hardly be construed as friendly to her cause. Merlin was on Arthur's side.

Wasn't he? He was a sorcerer. He had magic. He lied and did violence. He fit entirely under Arthur's rubric for identifying enemies, Arthur thought. Then, almost immediately, he mentally berated himself for being so foolish. If Arthur was to deem Merlin an enemy, he knew that it could not be because of the magic. Not really. Using it was admittedly illegal, but Merlin had just used it in self-defense. More or less. But certainly in the defense of his king. Plus, if he could defeat _Morgana,_ Merlin would have certainly had the power to have killed Arthur long ago. Yes, Merlin was a sorcerer. But wasn't that excusable? In this case, at least. Surely Arthur could look past _that._

Eventually. At that moment, there were more important things to worry about than what Merlin had been up to over the last decade. Right now, Arthur had to worry about what was wrong with him and why…

It was the _lies_ that were the worst, Arthur decided, finding that the subject of Merlin's betrayal was somehow more preferable than the most pressing matter at hand. In the back of his mind, he was almost amused. The idea that something could be more pressing than the revelation of Merlin having _magic…_

Merlin had been Arthur's servant for ten years. Arthur may not have regularly asked Merlin if he just so happened to be a sorcerer, but the lies by omission were all but constant, even if Arthur chose to discount those directly delivered to his face. Even now, as he'd spoken to Morgana, Merlin had _laughed_ when he had mentioned that no one in Camelot had figured him out. He'd even included Arthur as one of those ignorant of his true identity. The laugh hadn't sounded like Merlin's normal goofy laugh, but for all that Arthur knew, Merlin's normal goofy laugh wasn't normal at all. Perhaps the cynical and mocking laugh that had been directed toward Morgana was Merlin's _true_ laughter. There was no way of telling just how far the lies went. How far would Merlin have to go to conceal himself?

_Ask your friend Agravaine,_ he'd said…

It didn't help that Morgana had found out before Arthur had. _Morgana. _Arthur's _enemy,_ and she knew Merlin's most guarded secret before he did. That stung. Granted, Merlin hadn't exactly shared it in any confidence with her, but still. She had figured it out, apparently, and there had been a painful familiarity in their conversation after she had revealed the knowledge to Merlin. He'd never heard Merlin sound so…unguarded. Arthur hadn't even realized it until then, that Merlin had always had a sense of suspicion in everything that he did, as though he was always ready to flee at a moment's notice.

Or perhaps to fight.

With this short conversation with Morgana—of which Arthur supposed that he'd only heard a portion after waking up—Merlin had sounded more free than he had in all of his experiences with Arthur. How could that be? It didn't seem right. For whatever reason—especially considering everything else that he had in front of him to identify as offensive—this hurt almost as much as the lies. Morgana had been the first and Merlin had been open with her, aggressive as it may have been…Had he known Merlin at all?

Arthur supposed that it said something that he'd instinctively shut his eyes and played dead rather than give away that he'd seen his servant place his hands on a woman's head and knock her to the ground without saying a word. His servant, who dressed him and fed him and advised him and spent most of his time in Arthur's presence…and Arthur was just a smidge uncomfortable.

For several reasons.

He heard footsteps and felt his body tense. He knew, objectively, that he was in no real danger from Merlin. Granted, he wasn't going to go out of his way to provoke the young man, but Merlin hadn't exactly spoken as he had to Morgana as someone in collusion with her. Besides, no matter how often Merlin had lied to Arthur, there was no denying that he'd stayed by the king's side on countless occasions when it would have been far more self-preserving to run away. It was entirely possible that Merlin's motives were not as altruistic and selfless as Arthur had always believed them, but still. He'd never deliberately endangered Arthur, so far as Arthur knew. Merlin wasn't going to_ hurt_ him. Thankfully. From the lightness of the scabbard at his side and the absence of pressure on his arm, Arthur had been deprived of both sword and concealed dagger. Injured as he was, he probably would have had trouble battling a regular old Merlin in hand-to-hand combat. With magic on his side, Merlin wasn't exactly in a great deal of danger from Arthur.

Still, as he always did when he was in the room with a sorcerer, Arthur felt himself tense into an alert stiffness. He only hoped that it didn't show. Not only would it give away the fact that he was actually awake, but Merlin was familiar enough with Arthur's body language to take notice and to wonder. And Arthur wasn't sure that he was ready to answer any of Merlin's questions. He didn't know that he even had it in him to properly lie. Although he _had_ hit his head. Maybe Merlin would just interpret Arthur's daze and determination to avoid eye contact as a result of the blow to the head. Although blows to the head _did_ happen often enough to him; Merlin was more than familiar with how Arthur generally behaved when he woke from such ailments. Unless head damage accumulated with blow after blow. Arthur had always wondered that. He hoped not. Strangely, he always seemed to forget to ask.

There was a soft pressure on his shoulder that Arthur could only just feel through his armor. It shook slightly, jostling him.

"Arthur," said Merlin's voice, sounding so concerned that Arthur wanted to throw something. Preferably not something that would bounce back at him and knock him back into oblivion. "Arthur. Wake up, Arthur."

Arthur remained motionless, wondering what he ought to do. He didn't exactly have a personal protocol for this. If Merlin hadn't been the closest thing that they had to a physician whenever he and his men went on a mission, Arthur might have considered just continuing to play dead until Merlin handed him over to a healer. Then, before he had time to come up with an actually viable solution, he felt a hand under his chin. Panicking that Merlin was about to use magic on him and completely unprepared for t_hat_ possibility, he opened his eyes instinctively. He saw Merlin's face, looking distinctly taken aback at Arthur's sudden revival. "Oh. Arthur?"

"I'm fine," said Arthur crossly, shoving Merlin away as best he could without trying to move too much. Deep down, he knew perfectly well that half of the reason that he'd been so focused on this new development with Merlin had nothing to do with the sorcery or even the lies, mind-blowing as they were. There was something worse, so very much worse, that Arthur did not even want to consider. But now, he was awake and talking and he was going to have to try to stand and they would both have to face the fact that Arthur hadn't been able to properly feel his legs ever since he'd regained consciousness.

Merlin nodded, but wore that annoying expression that he always adopted when he thought that Arthur was being nonsensical but did not expect to get very far by calling him out on it. The expression was so very _normal_ and seemed suddenly so very wrong that, when Merlin reached out to examine Arthur's head scrape, Arthur flinched away from Merlin's touch. He couldn't help it. It just _happened_. For his part, Merlin looked surprised for a moment but, from the way that his face softened almost immediately, Arthur knew that Merlin thought that Arthur was in too much pain to be touched.

Arthur, faintly insulted by Merlin's opinion of his threshold for pain, leant back against the wall and, deciding that his pride was the most important factor of all to take into account just then, he nodded his permission for Merlin to see to his head wound. Merlin did so, and Arthur set his jaw as Merlin evaluated him. It seemed as though the head wound wasn't terribly serious; Merlin's expression cleared quickly, and Arthur realized that Merlin didn't know that anything else was wrong. He thought that he shouldn't have been surprised; the terrible pressure in his tailbone and the way that it ceased almost immediately at his hips could not have possibly shown. He wondered if there was a way for him to keep that going, at least until everything began working properly again. Which it would. It had to.

"Arthur, we need to go," said Merlin, sounding businesslike. "Morgana is unconscious for now, and the last your men saw of you, I was dragging you away with a bloody head. They need to see that you're alive, that you're alright. They need you."

Arthur scowled, resentful of the way in which Merlin could so breezily refer to Morgana's state she hadn't had anything to do with it, as well as how Merlin seemed to know exactly what words would be needed to get Arthur going again rather than focusing on Morgana's inexplicable incapacitation. His men needed him…

Then, before Arthur could come up with some excuse to stop him, Merlin seized Arthur by the elbows and tried to pull him to his feet. After an instant, it became painfully obvious that Arthur's torso was nothing but dead weight, that his only support came from how his spine had been leaning back against the stone wall that had presumably caused this whole problem, that his legs were all but useless. Merlin let him go, face stricken. Arthur wondered for half a second if he could just pretend that he didn't care about his men and that he just didn't want to go anywhere and was refusing to stand just to spite Merlin. But Merlin knew. There was devastation and regret and a sort of hideous fear, so swiftly replaced by a smile too bright to be anything but terribly false, and Arthur knew that Merlin knew and that made it true. Arthur couldn't walk.

So, before the dreadful pity set in, Arthur spoke. "So. You have magic, huh?"

And Merlin stared at him.

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**Not very long, but I wasn't even sure that I was going to continue this story. I don't want to spoil anything for the series 5 finale for anyone who hasn't seen it, but the fact that the show is OVER kind of discouraged me from bothering to keep going. Still, I had some already written, so I figured that I might as well post. This is also only about half of a longer chapter, but I only had time to edit the first half and wanted to get this up anyway. **

**Thank you for reading, and please review! :)**


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